Burning
by Purpuhl
Summary: The world is full of burning. The sun, silver, cookies... Love? / A gift for Rodania: may all your fics be fluff ;) / K plus for Te'ijal


_To Rodania, my partner in angst and in fluff, through sickness and health, poverty and wealth (but mostly poverty cuz we're always broke. Here's to when we can finally make that movie though!), till undeath do us part (or busy lives and poor internet connection, whichever may be first). Thank you for loving fluff as much as me and thanks for all the rants. And speaking of which, please enjoy this fluffy cracky nonsense. Happy belated birthday!_

 _Tiny headcanon explanation, I lined up the av1 sprites once and Te'ijal was actually one of the shortest, and that leads to too many cute things to ignore so I headcanon her as short. Galahad, of course, was tall and that leads to even more cute things. Please allow me to demonstrate. Exhibit A, this fic:_

* * *

Becoming a human was absolutely, positively, most undeniably the most unamusing thing that had ever happened to Te'ijal in all of her eight hundred and thirty-one years of existence. This was including the time Gyendal replaced all of her arrowheads with marshmallows, and the time Beatrice tried to steal her ghost, and even that one time Galahad stole her sunscreen and managed to get all the way to Veldt before she could overtake him—

Actually, truth be told she had laughed at all of those things, especially the one involving her darling crumpet. She had a nice, healthy, properly morbid sense of humor. She could take a joke.

But _this_ —

 _This_ was going too far. She was going to have words with the Goddess about it, she'd swear it on her very own grave.

Oh, how she missed her grave!

But for now she was stuck in Sedona, polishing Galahad's boots and cooking his dinner and being generally decidedly miserably _mortal_.

She hated human food, by the way. And at any rate, she was fairly certain what she cooked didn't even qualify as food at all. Stoves, spatulas, chicken eggs…. These were all mysterious to her. But it made Galahad happy when she tried to cook. The man had starved himself for centuries, that was the only reason. Any sane vampire, or person, or any creature under the sun or moon, would know better than to taste the dishes she served up.

But she had known for a long time that Galahad was far from sane. He was crazier than Mad Marge, from all those centuries before. There were even times Te'ijal thought he might be crazier than herself.

And oh, she loved him for it. She did. It was ridiculous, sappy human nonsense to be sure, but she had always had a soft spot for her food. Especially him. Maybe some part of her had always been human, after all.

It made her sick to think about.

And she had been thinking about it excessively lately, which had put her in an excessively foul mood, and that mood had, of course, fallen on Galahad's shoulders to deal with.

He had such succulent shoulders.

But anyway, she felt bad for what she had put him through in the past weeks, and she hated her stupid saccharine human self for it but that's the way she was now. And so, as a way to make it up to him which might not be too horribly obvious and undignified, she had decided… to try… to make cookies.

Which in the first place involved far too much egg cracking for her liking. Eggs were disgusting. They were hard on the outside and squishy on the inside. That was the exact opposite of how food should be. She _would_ be having words with the Goddess about this when it was over.

In the second place, it involved too much flour. What even was flour? Why was it white and poofy and prone to get everywhere? How did it manage to stick so thoroughly to her elbows and her nose and her bright red perfect hair and why was it so dry and tasteless? She hated flour, she hated whatever foolish human had invented it, and she hated that it apparently went in cookies.

She hated it so much, she decided to forego it entirely. It couldn't make _that_ much difference.

What she did like about this whole cookie thing was the sugar that was called for. Sugar, mixed with the right amount of salt and water, was _almost_ like blood. In fact, she would add the appropriate amount of those last two things now!

Surely Galahad would appreciate _that,_ after so many centuries of depriving himself.

Finally it came time to "spoon the cookie dough onto the baking sheet." Those were the directions in her cookbook. Confound humans and their ridiculous instructions! She had a baking sheet, Galahad had taught her what it was last week. And she knew what a spoon was: it was, in fact a _noun_ , referring to a small silver utensil that was apparently useful in the consumption of soup. It was _not_ a verb.

And it also was not an object Te'ijal had any particular fondness for. Silver may not burn her anymore, but it _used to_ and she didn't _trust it_ , not in the slightest. She hated spoons, and she had no idea what it meant to "spoon" something onto a baking sheet.

Nevertheless, she had determined to do this, and she would not be prevented. She touched the spoon.

She hissed.

It didn't burn. She wrapped her fingers around it. It still didn't burn, but it was very cold and she didn't appreciate that either.

She picked it up. It glinted evilly.

Very well, it was a contest then. She may not be a vampire anymore, but surely she could out-evil an eating utensil.

She stuck it in the cookie dough. Nothing happened.

She sighed. Apparently she would have to do all the work _herself_. How droll.

She managed to stick some of the cookie dough to the spoon, and _slopped_ it onto the baking sheet. This cookie dough was a gooey liquidy consistency that was incredibly difficult to work with. Humans really ought to devise some way to fix that.

Finally she managed to _slop_ all the cookie dough onto the baking sheet. It looked like a miniature swamp. Was this really appetizing to people? How amusing.

The next instruction was to place the baking sheet in a pre-heated oven and bake for twelve minutes. But had Te'ijal pre-heated the oven?

Of course not, you fool.

So she started a fire under her stove, and waited for the thermometer to read the required temperature, and entertained herself with throwing eggs through her window at unsuspecting passers-by.

It was quite diverting, and a much better use of eggs than in _food._

At last the oven was pre-heated, and she carefully put the cookies in— apparently ovens and humans shared the same relationship as silver and vampires. It would have been funny if she hadn't learned the hot way. The burns were not pleasant.

And then came the waiting.

As a vampire, Te'ijal had been fabulously patient. She once waited for three entire decades for Gyendal to come out of his library, and all so she could pay him back for his lovely marshmallow arrowheads (he had not appreciated the Boots of Sluggishness nearly as much as she had). But that was when she had eternity. Now she had a measly half a century, perhaps less.

Thinking about it made her stomach churn. She would have to distract herself.

There was a book on the lounge table which Galahad had been reading— _Rhen Pendragon: A History_. He had been searching through it for references to himself, and had apparently found it to be quite inaccurate.

Which meant, of course, that Te'ijal would find it unbearably amusing. She picked it up.

* * *

It was good to be back in Sedona. It was wonderful to smell the cheese, and the ocean air and the fish and all the familiar musty glorious smells of the city, still nearly the same after all these centuries. It was more wonderful still to smell those things and _not_ smell the blood, _not_ be keenly aware of every beating heart around him—

He loved it. It was a blessing from the Goddess, after so many centuries of being cursed.

He could see his face clearly reflected in his carefully shined sword now. He could feel the biting cold of the approaching evening and he could become properly weary after a good old-fashioned hard day's work as a knight in the court of His Majesty the King.

Best of all, he could go home to his darling, angry little wife and care for her as a husband was meant to.

Galahad smiled to himself. Te'ijal had not been as eager to accept the blessing of humanity as he had. She had been decidedly against it, actually. She had screamed and wailed and fought against it with every ounce of her soul, determined never to be anything but what she had been. She'd even tried to sleep on the floor— she _still_ tried to, no matter how many times he moved her gently to the bed.

She was as stubborn as him, and strangely, after all these centuries, he was beginning to believe he loved her for it.

He thought all these things as he approached the house they had made home, as he mounted the steps, one by one, as he pushed open the door—

He thought all these things, and he forgot them and everything else he had ever known or believed in his life as he took in the sight before him.

The kitchen was _on fire_.

The kitchen… was on _fire!_

"Wife!" he spluttered, mostly because it was the only word he could recall for one panicked moment. "Wife, what— what is happening in here?!"

"Hmm?" Te'ijal mumbled, lowering the book she had been reading. "What is the matter, Hus— _Husband_ , there is fire in the kitchen!"

Galahad _knew_ that, and very little else. Water, he would need water— suddenly, horribly, he wished for his vampiric speed back, as he ran to the kitchen and tried to pump water into the mixing bowl Te'ijal had apparently used to make some sort of slime earlier.

Te'ijal was by his side so quickly he wondered if she had gotten _her_ vampiric speed back— she was taking the bowl, and throwing it at the fire— the _whole thing_ , not just the water— and the fire hissed and sputtered and continued burning down the house— confound it all, they would need something else to put the water in—

"It must have been the silver spoon!" Te'ijal was babbling, and Galahad was panicking—

"Where do you keep the bowls?"

"Husband! How can you be thinking of food at a time like this? After all that time I tried to get you to feed—"

"To put the _water_ in, wife, where are the bowls?!"

"On top of the cupboard!" she answered, and scrambled to reach one—

She was on the tips of her toes, her arms stretched high above her— his darling, angry little wife was _too short_ and the fire was going to consume them—

He swept her up in his arms, and lifted her up towards the bowls— she grabbed one, and nearly jumped out of his arms and ran to the sink—

And she was filling it up and dumping it out and filling it up again, and the fire crackled and—

And it was out, somehow, thank goodness, bless all the stars, the kitchen was safe, he was safe, and his darling angry little wife was just fine—

"Galahad— Galahad, we nearly _burned to death!_ Just as though we were vampires out in the sun! Isn't it marvelous?"

Galahad swallowed. She was dancing around him, her violet eyes sparkling and her bright red hair bouncing, perfectly and entirely overjoyed at the idea of _almost dying_ — she was crazy, and stubborn, and—

"Wife, were you _trying_ to burn us all to the ground?"

"Oh, no, don't be ridiculous, Crumpet! I was just trying to make cookies. I suppose they are likely done now," she said, now pulling an oven mitt over her hands and reaching into the oven to pull out—

It had been a baking sheet, once, Galahad guessed. Now it was covered in something charred and smoking and he was certain neither he nor Te'ijal nor any other force in the entirety of Aia would ever be able to make it clean again.

Te'ijal cackled. "They're perfect! Look at them, my succulent darling, they are cooked entirely through!"

"Wife, they look—" Galahad sighed. "They look— delicious, darling," he said, and then he bent down and kissed her forehead, where that deranged, dear brain of hers lived.

And the thing that burned the most that day was his face as she patted his cheek and said, somewhat reluctantly, "Thank you for putting up with me, Crumpet. I hate being human but— I'm glad that, if I had to go through this, I'm going through it with you."


End file.
